One of the critical elements of any RTI program is having in place a set of procedures to ensure that the evidence-based practices used at the various tiers are being implemented with high fidelity.  In the absence of regular checks on fidelity of implementation, we won’t know if the interventions are being taught with integrity.  In order to make sound judgments about a student’s responsiveness to an intervention, we must be assured that the intervention is being taught in a way that is consistent with its initial design. If we don’t know if the intervention is being taught correctly, inappropriate decisions may be made about student performance – i.e., we may attribute poor performance to the student when it may be due primarily to ineffective implementation. A great deal has been written in the professional literature about the importance of doing fidelity checks and ways to do them.

While this attention on fidelity is appropriate, it is not sufficient!  It is equally important to know that interventions are being taught in the right dosage.

At a national education conference I attended recently, there were numerous sessions on RTI and its application (in excess of 20 sessions).  Each of the seven sessions on RTI that I attended was presented by those who were centrally involved in implementing an RTI program at the school level. There were two common threads running through each of these presentations.  First, there was a detailed description of the various components of their RTI system (e.g., how universal screening was conducted – including tools used and mechanics of scoring and interpreting the data, decision rules used to make instructional decisions about students based on screening results, a description of the evidence-based practices used and how their fidelity of implementation was measured and the frequency of doing these checks, and how progress monitoring was conducted).  Second, there was very little, if any, time spent describing the conditions or contextual factors that existed in their schools and/or districts that supported the successful implementation of the RTI program that they were describing. 

When practitioners hear about effective RTI models at conferences or read about their successful implementation in the professional literature, they need to understand the conditions or contextual factors in the school or district in which RTI was successfully implemented as much as they understand the elements or features of the RTI program being implemented. In other words, educational innovations like RTI gain most traction in settings that provide the necessary conditions to support their use. Less successful implementations elsewhere may be caused by an absence of supporting conditions, rather than because of the particular RTI procedures, per se.  If this is the case, we need to spend much more time describing the supporting conditions that exist in a given school or district that enable an RTI program to be successful. 

What does an RTI coach do?  A general definition of coach is someone who facilitates knowledge and skill development in others.  This might be done through traditional professional development workshops, but more likely skill development is embedded in the work of the school.  Much of an RTI coaches’ work is done with teams.  Schools with effective RTI models typically have two types of teams that meet regularly and use data to make important decisions about meeting student needs.  Generally, there is a building team whose mission is to oversee the implementation of RTI across the building.  The make up of this team is representative of the various professional roles in the building.  They spend time reviewing screening data to determine whether the core instruction has been effective and evaluate where intervention resources appear to be most needed.  In addition, building teams may assist grade level/teaching teams in planning more intensive (Tier 3) interventions when students have not responded to the grade level team’s Tier 2 supports.

For RTI implementation to be successful, schools need support, resources, and focus.  School principals play a very important role in providing focus and instructional leadership (see David Prasses’s blog on this site). Given the many demands on principals’ time, however, an RTI coach can be an important resource in providing the kind of support necessary for change and successful implementation.  The role of the coach is to support the principal in leading RTI, while also working with colleagues to strengthen teams in their ability to use data to make good instructional decisions for students. 

Coaching has become an increasingly popular model of professional development in schools.  A coach typically is someone who has expertise both in content and in working effectively with colleagues.  Literacy coaches are becoming more prevalent in elementary schools. "Mentor" is another term used in some schools to describe a person who provides support for improving classroom instruction.  While there are a number of shared characteristics between an RTI coach and a literacy coach or mentor, there are some differences. In the Reading Coach, Hasbrouck and Denton (2005) suggest that the focus of coaching is about the students. Student improvement clearly is a shared characteristic among coaching models.   A literacy coach/mentor, however, may spend considerable time working with individuals, while an RTI coach is likely to spend more time working with teams. An RTI coach would not only be skilled in working well with teams but also would have expertise in using educational data for decision-making and strong knowledge of evidenced based instructional practices.

About two weeks ago, a very talented evaluation team released a report documenting the findings from their evaluation of the national Reading First initiative.  For those who may be unfamiliar, Reading First is the early literacy program that was incepted as part of No Child Left Behind, a few years ago.  This program was one vehicle to bring scientific, research-based instructional practice into a large number of schools.  The news-making finding from the report was that it appears that Reading First did not make a difference in reading comprehension in the schools from the evaluation study.  Major news since we as a country have spent huge amounts of money on the program.

What does all of this have to do with RTI?  Well, a number of important things.  For one, many Reading First sites are using a 3-tier model and instructional practices similar to those being advocated in RTI.  Also, Reading First was a national-level initiative, just like RTI.  And finally, the purpose of an evaluation study is to learn what you can about what is working and what is not so that you can improve your program.  There may, in fact be implications for RTI from this study.

It is widely acknowledged that RTI application at the middle and secondary levels is not as developed as it is at the elementary level. There are a number of reasons for that difference, including structural/organizational school-based differences between elementary settings and middle/high school settings. Structures that typify middle and high schools (departments) and content-based specialization for teacher credentialing, resulting in multiple teachers for each student, pose challenges in those settings that are not found in the elementary setting. National initiatives around literacy, early reading program emphasis (e.g., Reading First), and a general professional and political acknowledgment that achievement problems are best attacked earlier also contribute to a greater emphasis on elementary schools. 

As in elementary schools, the challenges we find at middle and secondary levels are real. Often, the concerns expressed are a function of a long-standing organizational structure that has the appearance of making it seem impossible to implement RTI. “How do we find time to address student needs without taking time away from something else?” is often a question posed. Or, “When during the day could we possibly do this?” Or, “That’s fine, but he/she can’t miss biology or….” And yet there are approaches and places where RTI has moved forward in these settings, and protocols for doing so exist. Indeed, see Judy Eliott’s blog on this site.